Does Anyone Really Read College Application Essays?

Juniors, by now you should be thinking a lot about college. What schools sound interesting to you? Do you have any campus visits scheduled during spring break?

Whether you are busy with a spring sport, school play or selecting your classes for senior year, don’t forget to carve out some time to get ready for your first-choice college. Consider the things that are important to you, and explore what you’ve done beyond going to school, taking the SAT or ACT, and participating in extracurricular activities.

Before you know it, you’ll be writing a college essay – or four! And, if you want to stand out in the piles and piles of applications inside the admissions office, you’ll need to find a way to incorporate something you’ve learned during the past few years into a meaningful and personal statement.

Because we are national experts on the application essay, students, parents, and educational professionals come to us for help. As you can imagine, we get peppered with questions on the subject.

This is one of the most common questions we get: Does anyone really read the college application essay?

Of course admissions officers read the essays!

They wouldn’t ask you to write something they did not plan to read.

Admissions professionals want to read your story, the one you feel it’s important to share with them. It’s your story. Your voice. Your words. What they don’t want is to read a story you think they want to hear; they want to read a story about YOU that you want them to know!

Every essay is an opportunity!

At the September 2014 National Association for College Admissions Counseling’s annual conference in Indianapolis, we polled about two dozen admission representative to find out if they really read the essays. The collective answer: yes!

“Last year we received 25,000 applications, and we read 25,000 essays,” says Amy Hoffman, Assistant Director of Admissions at Miami University of Ohio.

In addition to Hoffman, we have interviewed dozens of admission officers from around the country. Watch the video interviews here. If you are not already a member, get FREE access to our video library by signing up for Wow today.